Offense clicks on all cylinders for Raiders

August 7, 2010

By

Bryan Davis

It was 11 on 11 Friday night. Oak Hill wore the solid dark red jerseys, and Immanuel sported the white and red.
It was the first time since last November that Oak Hill has had the opportunity to stack up against another school’s offense and defense.
Sure there was no kicking or punting, and the coaches were right there on the field with the team, but nobody was holding back in the year’s first scrimmage.
“This is the first time we’ve had 11 on 11,” said Oak Hill head coach Leroy Gregg, who was pleased with his team’s overall effort on the night. “You get another team in there and give your defense something to look at and stack up against.”
Oak Hill had a good Spring practice session back in April and May, but they did a lot of work over the summer in conditioning and weight training.
That appears to have paid off, based on their performance against the Rams on Friday night.
“We took good care of the football for the most part,” Gregg said. “Our quarterbacks made good decisions, and our running backs ran hard.”
The Raiders came out first on defense. The scrimmage called for 36 total plays on each side of the ball.
At first, Immanuel got through some holes in the Oak Hill defense, but it didn’t take long for the Raiders to find the right formula to plug those creases.
“The defense struggled at first,” Gregg said. “After the first series, we shut them down.”
On offense, Jeb Stevens led the squad at the quarterback position. He was intercepted once in the second series, but Immanuel could not do any more damage to the Raider offense.
A combination of Phillip Liu and Doss Miller provided Oak Hill a great run game all evening.
“We were able to run the ball some on the ground, and we threw the ball well in the air,” Gregg said.
Oak Hill has one last step to take before the August 20 kickoff against Heritage. They will travel to Manchester (Yazoo City) this Friday for a four-team jamboree.
According to Gregg, Hillcrest and Carroll will be there, along with the host team.
“It will be a couple of scrimmages against two teams,” Gregg said. “It will give us something else to line up on.”
Last year, Oak Hill defeated Manchester 20-12 in a conference battle.
In week six of the 2009 season, they played Carroll as well and also defeated that team 21-14.